My Mom, Monkeys and a Monastery

      My mom has arrived in Taiwan!!!  She got here Thursday night, and this weekend we took her to southern Taiwan for her first adventures, to Kaohsiung!  As I've been here over a year now (and 3 days!) this trip really took its toll on me and my frustrations of traveling around an Asian country with very limited Chinese for so long.  Trying to find proper buses to take us to our desired locations sent us on multiple wild goose hunts, and after zigzaging around train stations and bus stations, we had to move down our list of attractions.
      Our first stop on Saturday was Monkey Mountain.  This is essentially a mountain right along the coast, with a stop along the way to the top that is littered with monkeys.  They are everywhere running free and wild.  It was a little scary, I didn't want any limbs to get torn off, and most people kept their distance.  One man was throwing something that looked like popcorn to the monkeys and they ate it up.  He was also hand feeding one in a tree, he would reach out to it and the monkey would take the food directly from his hand.  Then the pack of wild dogs came and started chasing the monkeys around and barking like crazy.  It was quite the show.  One monkey was trapezing on the light post wires over our heads!  There were even 2 little babies with mothers protecting them, very cute.

 Mr. Monkey wanted to go for a drive. 

But he just settled for this cup he snatched from the scooter. 

View from Monkey Mountain       5 little monkeys sitting in a tree..

       Sunday we visited Confucius Temple.  It was said to be pretty popular, the largest Confucian temple in Taiwan.  When we finally go there, two other people were there and on the way out, so we were for real the ONLY people there.  It was soo strange!  I said to Greta "this is so weird, I can't believe there's no one here."  She replied, "yea, I wish I weren't even here." This was due to our wonderful mother being here, and already starting to drive us nuts after only a few days of being reunited! All in good fun though.

        Next we bused to the Fo Guang Shan Monastery.  This is the largest monastery in Taiwan, and was just finished in 2011, so very new as well.  It hosts a few huge Buddhas (though not at large as the one at Emei Lake that I scootered to a few weeks ago) and a very pretty and serene place.  There were tons of large tourist groups, but didn't seem too crowded outdoors and walking around, just inside the buildings.  There was a neat museum with a lot of information about how Buddha came to be, and a 4D movie that we missed out on because of the showing times :(  From the main monastery area we took a little golf cart up a hill and off to the side to see even more temple places and another big gold Buddha!

 Big Buddha surrounded by 8 Pagoda's of Enlightenment.  

A giant shimmer rooster at the monastery... makes sense?  Tons of statues, some are fist pumping, see them? 

There's 480 little gold Buddha's all leading up the gigantor.  

        Later, we took our mom to see Lotus Pond with the Tiger and Dragon Pagodas.  She's been very amused with, oh everything here, and taking just an outlandish amount of photos.  I feel extremely touristy traveling with her, and it's opening my eyes to some of the things I've started to become so accustomed to over the year, perhaps more on this later.  I'm very glad that she's enjoying being here and interested in everything!
        Sunday evening we took a short ferry ride from the harbor to a small island called Cijin.  Here we had a fantastic supper of fresh seafood and all very cheap.  There's also a beach area here, but it was around 9pm when we were done eating, so we couldn't see it too well, but it looked like a cool place to swim and relax during the day, unless of course it would have been crowded with people, which is probably the case.

         Monday we made a stop at Central Park because I wanted to see the grass labyrinth, but it was pretty overgrown and not very tall.  It was a nice park with interesting sculptures floating in the water.  Then it was time to return north and get back to work Monday late afternoon!

Oh, and today before going to work after we got back, I finally tried this Tuna Waffle from a tea shop I love, and it was fabulous!! Looks a little.... eh, but trust me. Tuna waffle, try one if you get the chance.